Running comes Home

I've hosted Collingwood's edition of the Run for the Cure nearly every year since the town got its own run site, seven years ago. A scheduling conflict means I can't be there this year, and I'm sad about more than missing the fun of a Sunday morning with those enthusiastic and wonderful pink-clad men and women.

The first reason I'm sad to miss it is that this will be the year they hit the million dollar mark. A million dollars raised in a scant seven years. That's pretty impressive, especially considering how many different organisations and charities are asking for your charitable money these days, not to mention the rising fees for pretty much every activity, including your kids' school. The milestone means an extra-big celebration and I'm terribly sad not to be there.

The other reason I'm sad not to be there is that I think I finally 'get' the urge to be part of fundraising events like this. I confess that while I support the folks who are so intimately involved and invested in these things, and I give my money and my time, I have often found myself confounded by their passion. This year, I get it. I think.

Sunday afternoon, I will attend a memorial service for my cousin who died of cancer this week. Debbie Gordon was a lovely, lovely woman, talented and kind, a nurse and a good one. Her wedding was the first of my cousins' weddings I was old enough to attend, a winter wedding and I remember how gorgeous Debbie was in her fur-lined white cape. She will be desperately missed by her kids and grandkids and her heartbroken husband. Her cancer wasn't breast cancer, but I feel so frustrated and powerless and sad for Debbie's loss, I think I now understand the urge to run, to fund raise, to at least hand over money in the hope of making a difference.

And a difference has been made. I found out this week, because of amazing advances in research, a dear woman of my aquaintance has a better chance of living a long and healthy life even though she was born with a breast cancer death sentence. After several cancer diagnoses in her family, she tested positive for the gene that virtually guarantees a breast or ovarian tumour. Both she and her sisters have made the tough choice that many such women are making: to remove the possibility of reproductive cancers, they have opted to remove their breasts and reproductive organs entirely. Can you even imagine being presented with such an option? Before you read on, take just a minute to think about what that scene in the doctor's office must have been like.

I'm grateful for the researchers' big brains. Happy for the positive outcomes. Devastated by the loss. Frustrated and upset. And I get it. I finally get the combative words survivors use and I know why you fundraisers work so hard. I'm sorry I won't be with you this year, ladies, but in my heart I, too will be running for the cure, and I vow I'll be there next year, pledge form in hand.

The Collingwood edition of the Run for the Cure is Sunday at Harbourview Park, 9 am.